As the Exxon Valdez case showed, the sad reality is that it is always much cheaper to bribe judges and political leaders in mass than it is to repay for a catastrophic disaster. The full damages will never be paid and the Gulf will be polluted for generations. Obama fully realizes that all of his promises re accountability are pure BS.

The individual BP employees who submitted the phony disaster recovery plan and the individual Federal employees who approved it need to be criminally charged with fraud.

I am starting to get the feeling that the Obama Administration (despite the get-tough talk we will hear in the coming days when he addresses the nation) is going to back off somewhat from criminal prosecutions that involve BP management.

My suspicion (unproven) is that the British PM told Obama that if things get really bad for BP, then he will be forced to pull out of, or severely cut back from, the war in Afghanistan due to political pressures at home. For that reason, I suspect that Obama will do a lot of talking, but not much in the way of criminal prosecution. Of course, I could be wrong.

You do have a vivid imagination!

The British public want their troops out of Afghanistan, it's as simple as that.

What Cameron probably told Obama is the simple fact that the US loses out financially as well as the UK if BP go tits up. You must also take into account that the weaker BP gets the less able they will be to clear up the mess and pay compensation.
Incidentally, BP have said right from the start that they will do those things without question.
There has been so much (understandable) knee jerk reaction to this that a lot of people have not thought about the long term financial and strategic implications. If Obama does not lift the ban on deepwater drilling the aim of reducing US dependency on foreign oil will be a dream.
The US will be at the mercy of the Middle East oil producing countries and Russia until the stuff runs out. They'll have you over a barrel, so to speak.
Can't wait.

The British public want their troops out of Afghanistan, it's as simple as that.

That may be, but I don't think the British government would pull them out of Afghanistan unless that had some other excuse, such as if the British public feels that the US is trying to destroy BP, which will affect the pensions and individual stock holdings that have BP stock.

BP is the single largest fuel supplier to the US military (though this can change).

BP is not a British company -- they are an international company; and they are the fourth largest company in the world, IIANM.

As was mentioned by Congressman Markey (from Massachusetts) today: about 90% of the emergency plans from all five oil companies are virtually the same; sometimes word for word. BP and four of the five mention walruses in their Gulf of Mexico emergency plans!

BP is the single largest fuel supplier to the US military (though this can change).

BP is not a British company -- they are an international company; and they are the fourth largest company in the world, IIANM.

As was mentioned by Congressman Markey (from Massachusetts) today: about 90% of the emergency plans from all five oil companies are virtually the same; sometimes word for word. BP and a couple of others mention walruses in their Gulf of Mexico emergency plans!

Hey, who needs an emergency plan -- what could happen?

If BP went into bankruptcy their operations would be sold to another company (which may happen even if they remain solvent).

So what if they have the same emergency plan? If it is a good plan (probably developed by the same consultant for all the major companies) then who cares if it is the same? This is a red herring.

The problem is that certain mistakes cannot easily be recovered from, like the spill in the Gulf, so it probably doesn't matter what the emergency plan is. They need a plan to make sure the reckless decisions made by BP don't ever happen again in the first place.

I understand the problem, but it is not necessarily a problem if the emergency plan mentions walruses, because the plan may have been originally written for an area (like the US west coast) that has walrusses, and other than that it might be a good plan (but I am not saying it is).

So I am saying that the viability of the plan depends mostly on the other things, and not just the accuracy of the local wildlife. For example, Saudi Arabia has a lot of experience with massive spills and cleanup using oil supertankers, miles and miles of barges, etc, that probably should have been in the plan, but they weren't. The kinds of oil supertankers used to clean up spills in the Middle East cannot be used in the USA because American unions were able to keep out foreign made tankers via legislation that has been passed (according to the former head of Shell USA, who appeared on Charlie Rose last night).

They all bought their plans from the same company. They don't know what is in their own plan, and they don't care. It was a perfunctory thing, probably fluffed up with wide margins and large font face.

They all bought their plans from the same company. They don't know what is in their own plan, and they don't care. It was a perfunctory thing, probably fluffed up with wide margins and large font face.

These "emergency plans" are a farce, pure and simple.

If you haven't figured out by now, oil companies hire contractors to do almost everything. I still say that if it was a good plan (probably not) there is no harm in copying it or using the same consultant to develop it for multiple oil companies.

Let's focus on the real merits or inadequacies of the plan, not the superficial stuff, if you really want to critique it (as was done by the former Shell Executive on Charlie Rose last night).

I already said in 2 previous posts that the disaster plan was probably not any good. But what I said is that is that it has nothing to do with walruses or whether the same consulting company put together the same plan for multiple oil companies. It would have been possible that a very good plan had been adopted by multiple oil companies. In fact, if the plan was any good, it should have been adopted by multiple companies.

If they had no plan why were they allowed to drill there, surely this point (and only this point) ultimately rests with the US Government body that supervises these things.

In exactly the same way that all of the Banks that needed to be bailed out would not have gone down the tubes if the countries in which they were based had much stronger rules and regulations.

This is not to say that every single person in the chain of work and command should not be blamed, but that this should not stop at BP, who let BP drill there (apparantly with no plan in the even that something bad happened), the US Government is at the top of the chain of command in this instance. The US Government should have looked through all of the plans, the safety procedures, and put into place the neccessary rules, procedures, and regulations that must be followed, evidently they did not, they gave BP the permission to drill for oil in massively deep waters and didnt think to check up on disaster plans, thats retarded.

I suspect this will become public knowlege at some point in the future, but no doubt they are going to do their very best to keep the finger of blame (and shame) pointed at BP for as long as possible before people start pointing the finger at their own governments failings.

Quote:

They should pay with their wallets, and when the coffers become emptied, they should pay with their lives.

They said they would from the outset, but as their "coffers" are ultimately part of a huge amount of American peoples "coffers" it seems strange that some American people seem determined to want to see BP go bust. This would be no different if there were a spate of plane crashes and the American people suddenly want to see Boeing go bust.

The words dont sound like the aim is for anything other than revenge and retribution, revenge and retribution to a huge number of Americans does not sound like it was a clearly thought out plan.

Andy

PS: This is not anti-American, this is simply common sense and I would say the same thing if it were off of the coast of any other country.

And since the oil spew is continuing, and the plan they had was so horrible, then it would be a very bad thing for all the other oil companies to use similar plans.

Why are you trying to put positive spin on such a horrific situation?

I am not trying to put a positive spin on what happened. Read my other posts. I think BP is completely culpable, and probably criminally so.

What I was trying to explain is that the end (correctly blaming BP for the spill) does not justify the means (using faulty logic in discrediting the emergency plan). If you had used proper logic in discrediting the emergency plan, you would have discussed the actual inadequacies contained in the plan (of which there are many) instead of the superficial and irrelevant complaints about mention of walruses that don't happen to exist in the Gulf of Mexico (although they do exist in other areas).

I also pointed out that (although the plan may be flawed) it is not necessarily flawed because multiple oil companies use the same plan (even if it may be flawed for other reasons that you did not mention).

The only reason they are drilling there is because of America's insatiable demand for gas to fuel all those huge V8 engined pick up trucks so many of you seem to love driving around in.

The US consumes a quarter of the entire worlds annual production of crude oil, of which 47% is used for gasoline!!

If the US government taxed gas as much as European countries do, that might be an incentive to start using smaller engines.

Oil is a fungible product. It doesn't matter where the oil is located versus where it is consumed. BP drilled there because they thought they could make a profit, not because the well was near the US. When they got behind schedule and had massive cost overruns, BP cut corners and the rest is history.

If oil had been $50 a barrel when the project was evaluated, I doubt that well would have ever been drilled. I think that there are more reasons than just US demand that have caused oil prices to increase in recent years, including the extremely robust growth in less developed countries.

Regarding V8 engines, a lot of European auto makers including BMW, MB, Jaguar, Audi, etc sell cars with V8 engines for passenger cars, much less for pickup trucks. How come the EU doesn't ban the manufacture of these engines for passenger cars?

I am not blaming the entire oil spew on the lack of a workable plan -- I am not a simpleton.

They should not have been there in the first place unless and until they can prove beyond a doubt that the blowout preventer lived up to it's name, and until they have redundancy that made the risk vanishingly small.

They were cocky. They thought they could use the cheapest methods. They hired the lowest bidders. They ignored warnings from within their own company, and from the government -- apparently they were warned to expect a fair amount of methane by someone in the government, and they rejected that possibility.

Nah, they have a piss-poor attitude; thinking that they are able to get filthy rich by cutting corners, and poke holes in the ground with impunity, and suck up a most precious resource that belongs to no one/everyone, and take risks in doing so, that have proven to exact a very, very high price from all the rest of us -- and the entire life-giving environment that we call the Gulf of Mexico.

I am not blaming the entire oil spew on the lack of a workable plan -- I am not a simpleton.

They should not have been there in the first place unless and until they can prove beyond a doubt that the blowout preventer lived up to it's name, and until they have redundancy that made the risk vanishingly small.

They were cocky. They thought they could use the cheapest methods. They hired the lowest bidders. They ignored warnings from within their own company, and from the government -- apparently they were warned to expect a fair amount of methane by someone in the government, and they rejected that possibility.

Nah, they have a piss-poor attitude; thinking that they are able to get filthy rich by cutting corners, and poke holes in the ground with impunity, and suck up a most precious resource that belongs to no one/everyone, and take risks in doing so, that have proven to exact a very, very high price from all the rest of us -- and the entire life-giving environment that we call the Gulf of Mexico.

[/rant]

If you want to push my rant button again, go right ahead!

OK, but leave the walruses, and the fact that multiple oil companies apparently used the same consultant to draft their emergency plan, out of the discussion because it is nit-picking and probably not relevant to anything.

The other points you made in the last post above are different, and I actually agree with most of what you said. I am not sure whether or not it was OK for them to drill there, because if they weren't so greedy and had done things according to accepted procedure (and as the sub-contractors recommended) I don't know if the explosion and spill would have ever occurred.

The only reason they are drilling there is because of America's insatiable demand for gas to fuel all those huge V8 engined pick up trucks so many of you seem to love driving around in.

The US consumes a quarter of the entire worlds annual production of crude oil, of which 47% is used for gasoline!!

If the US government taxed gas as much as European countries do, that might be an incentive to start using smaller engines.

Oil is a fungible product. It doesn't matter where the oil is located versus where it is consumed. BP drilled there because they thought they could make a profit, not because the well was near the US. When they got behind schedule and had massive cost overruns, BP cut corners and the rest is history.

That is nonsense. It is US policy to reduce their dependence on foreign oil. That is why the US government issued licences for exploration in deepwater off their own coast. BP bid for and won some licences. It is only natural for any company to seek to maximise profits - that is what capitalism is all about as you should well know as you seem to be an expert in most fields.

m0002a wrote:

If oil had been $50 a barrel when the project was evaluated, I doubt that well would have ever been drilled. I think that there are more reasons than just US demand that have caused oil prices to increase in recent years, including the extremely robust growth in less developed countries.

Not so - the well would still have been drilled, it's original purpose was for reservoir evaluation in order that the government could assess their reserves. At some point during the actual drilling operation it was decided to turn the well into a producer. This may be one of the reasons for the complications that arose.You are correct in saying that the demand for oil has increased in countries such as China and India, however this does not change the fact that the US with 4.53% of the worlds population consumes 24% of it's oil.

m0002a wrote:

Regarding V8 engines, a lot of European auto makers including BMW, MB, Jaguar, Audi, etc sell cars with V8 engines for passenger cars, much less for pickup trucks. How come the EU doesn't ban the manufacture of these engines for passenger cars?

That argument is once again nonsense. It is true that some European manufacturers equip their luxury models with V8 engines however firstly, the capacity of those engines is much less than the V8 engines used in a typical American Pick-Up and the weight of the vehicle is much less - both factors combine to give a substantially lower fuel consumption.
Secondly, the proportion of these types of luxury vehicles on the road in Europe is substantially less than the proportion of large engined vehicles on the road in the US. I've been to the US on a number of occasions and have seen for myself.
It is also well known that European and Japanese engines are designed to have a much higher fuel efficiency for a given size than are American engines. You have never had the need to think about such things because the price of gasoline in the US is, and has always been, so ridiculously low.

Take your blinkers off and recognise the truth for what it is! America's excessive consumption of gasoline is squandering a finite resource.
When oil runs out - present estimates are around 25 years; it's not just gasoline that will be in short supply, there's also heating oil, aviation fuel and most importantly, the plastics industry. Will we be going back to a world where things are made of wood and/or metal? (Much nicer materials in my opinion, but that's not the point) The point is that cheap plastics make many, many products not only cheap but possible.

You may be more logical than Mr Spock, however Captain Kirk was the one with the common sense.

You know, the walruses are totally indicative of what crap plans they are. And listing the name and phone number of a marine biologist in the emergency phone numbers to call -- who has been dead for FIVE years, does not help their credibility...

Even the fact that they hired a third party to write their plans is totally wrong -- it is THEIR plan to do the correct thing in an emergency!

If they don't even write it, then how the *bleep* do they know what is in it? Did they themselves THINK THROUGH THE PROCESS AND ACCESS THE RISKS?

I think the obvious answer is NO, they did not. And THAT is the whole problem, isn't it?

BP in particular, and all the oil companies in general, are only in it for the money -- thinking that they are able to get filthy rich by cutting corners, and poke holes in the ground with impunity, and suck up a most precious resource that belongs to no one/everyone, and take risks in doing so, that have proven to exact a very, very high price from all the rest of us -- and the entire life-giving environment that we call the EARTH!

"I think that the only thing worse than one oil spill in the Gulf would be two BP oil spills and I think Congress and BP should heed the warning you are giving," Edward Markey, a powerful Democratic congressman, said in a hearing this week in which Mr Abbott's claims were aired.

Unlike the Deepwater Horizon, which was a drilling rig, the Atlantis, which is operated by BP and co-owned by the company and BHP Billiton, the mining group, is an oil and gas production facility, turning out 200,000 barrels of oil a day.

At the centre of Mr Abbott's claim are allegations that BP skipped critical procedural steps that require engineers to approve design structures. Although he was never on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, Mr Abbott said that he believed, based on his analysis of press reports, that he saw on the Atlantis the same problems that led to the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

"This lack of critical engineering documentation is being seen on the Deepwater Horizon rig, was involved in the Texas City disaster in 2005 and the Alaska pipeline spills in 2006. It's a common thread for those disasters in BP Atlantis," Mr Abbott told members of Congress.

Mr Abbott said a database he developed before being fired by BP found that of a total 7,000 drawings and documents, almost 90 per cent had never received any engineering approval of any kind.

In the military, a plan for disaster is repeated many times if it means acting. It is never fun. Redundant beyond an E-4 it is a mind strain... so many times, the same plan over and over....acted out loud...

one day the engine does catch on fire... and there is a pile of crewchiefs in subconscious trained modes winning a medal.

Civilian could care less. BP, and all of them. Just add a few billion dollars a year in profits for something that never stops flowing apparently..it gains a pwer over governements. Indirectly, one could blame the gov't as much as the big badass called BP.

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